BEND, Ore. - Last weekend, Kent Couch settled down in his lawn chair with some snacks -- and a parachute. Attached to his lawn chair were 105 large helium balloons. Destination: Idaho.
With instruments to measure his altitude and speed, a global positioning system device in his pocket, and about four plastic bags holding five gallons of water each to act as ballast -- he could turn a spigot, release water and rise -- Couch headed into the Oregon sky
Nearly nine hours later, the 47-year-old gas station owner came back to earth in a farmer's field near Union, short of Idaho but about 193 miles from home.
When you're a little kid and you're holding a helium balloon, it has to cross your mind," Couch told the Bend Bulletin.
"When you're laying in the grass on a summer day, and you see the clouds, you wish you could jump on them," he said. "This is as close as you can come to jumping on them. It's just like that."
Couch is the latest American to emulate Larry Walters -- who in 1982 rose three miles above Los Angeles in a lawn chair lifted by balloons. Walters had surprised an airline pilot, who radioed the control tower that he had just passed a guy in a lawn chair. Walters paid a $1,500 penalty for violating air traffic rules.
It was Couch's second flight.
In September, he got off the ground for six hours. Like Walters, he used a BB gun to pop the balloons, but he went into a rapid descent and eventually parachuted to safety.
This time, he was better prepared. The balloons had a new configuration, so it was easier to reach up and release a bit of helium instead of simply cutting off a balloon.
He took off at 6:06 a.m. Saturday after kissing his wife, Susan, goodbye and petting his Chihuahua, Isabella. As he made about 25 miles an hour, a three-car caravan filled with friends, family and the dog followed him from below.
Couch said he could hear cattle and children, and he said he even passed through clouds.
"It was beautiful -- beautiful," he told KTVZ-TV. He described the flight as mostly peaceful and serene, with occasional turbulence, like a hot-air balloon ride sitting down.
Couch decided to stop when he was down to a gallon of water and just eight pounds of ballast. Concerned about the rugged terrain outside La Grande, including Hells Canyon, he decided it was time to land.
He popped enough balloons to set the craft down, although he suffered rope burns. But after he jumped out, the wind grabbed his chair, with his video recorder, and the remaining balloons and swept them away. He's hoping to get them back some day.
Brandon Wilcox, owner of Professional Air, which charters and maintains planes at the Bend airport, on Thursday confirmed Couch's flight. Wilcox said he flew a plane nearby while Couch traveled, and a passenger videotaped the flying lawn chair.
Whether Couch will take a third trip is up to his wife, and Susan Couch said she's thinking about saying no. But she said she was willing to go along with last weekend's trip.
"I know he'd be thinking about it more and more, it would always be on his mind," she said. "This way, at least he's fulfilled his dream."

I am throwing out a simple wager to any of my slashdot friends and foes alike.
Here's the wager:
I am staking a bet of $20 to any one who reads this post that if he or she were to lend me a $20 bill that I could accumulate a return on investment of $200 in three months or less or your $20 back plus my $20 if I were to fail in giving you back that return of $200.00
If you are brave enough to stake this bet, then you have to agree to let me show you step by step how I generate this return, yes, you get to look straight over my shoulder as I apply a simple financial and accounting strategy which you can in turn teach to your friends "The Dark Magic Of Making Money" just the way I did.
However, you would also have to agree not to reveal this "Dark Accounting Technique" to anyone whatsoever before the end of the agreed period while I weave and work this money making magic.
If I fail, you simply get your money back plus another $20 for wasting your time.
If I succeed you would have earned $220 from which you would have to pay me $20 for my winning effort.
Any takers? Or is this a network where the "chickens" have come to hatch?
Interested? email me at globally365[@]yahoo.com or drop me a line right here at my blog
http://www.linkbrander.com/go/44531
Signed: The Dark Wizard Of Finance

Every body loves to make money and lots of it especially online.
Since Wednesday, June 19, 2007, a new and exciting ebook was released to the hungry masses called: Project Black Mask this is supposed to be a tell all straight to the point, punch by punch detail of how to trick Google and other search engines into sending qualified traffic to hundred of your your adsense stuffed webpages therefore generating a few dollars per page when multiplied across 400 .info domains will bring forth everlasting "green candy coated manna" tricking into your bank accounts.

Apart from the fact that a number of so called Black Hat S.E.O Strategies were outlined, you would also be required to automate your backlinks by blasting your links to every directory, blog and forum known to man for Google to give significance to the 400 or so domain names you purchsed

This strategy as advised by my S.E.O consultant is a strategy that has been used by many a Black Hat S.E.O's for a while now and to make it available to the average disillusioned wanna strike it rich internet marketing profilers out there can lead to widescale abuse of this method and therefore causing the search engines to take punitive actions against users of these strategies.
Once a certain strategy becomes too wide spread putting a strain on the search engines, lowering quality standards while giving an unfair advantage on the S.E.R.P's, the search engines usually hit back and hit back hard. Take the issue of paid backlinks for example

Most of the professionals in the S.E.O arena have shrugged off the Project Black Mask ebook as hypovoluted and will not last through the next three (3) updates of the Google Sand-Box Dynamics as these strategies will prove ineffective in the future, plus the use of Google Adsense inside of poor search relevant (garbage) webpages as Google is very tentative about the sudden rash of low quality content Made For Adsense (MFA) websites. So all in all the shelf life of this "exposed secret strategy" used by Black Hat S.E.O webmasters seems to be very short indeed

Apart from buying an ebook for $77.00 that is largely welcomed by the non-earning internet|affiliate marketer as salvation to the Pearly Gates of Internet Marketing Heaven, more is required to make this strategy work, first off you will be required to buy 400 of the the cheapest domains at $1.25 each, this will set you back another $500.00 plus the high end software required to set this project on auto-pilot which in some forums have been mentioned to cost as much as $2500.00!!

Point of order: 98% of internet marketers cannot afford to finance or set up a project even if it's a guranteed return of $100,000.00 inside 30 days. A resounding majority of all hardly ever earn $3000.00 per year from online ventures much less being able to finance the "Project Black Mask Program" at a whopping $3000.00!! Many an anxious make money online enthusiast will be shamefully disappointed when they realised it will cost more than they ever make online to get the "Project Black Mask" off the ground as it takes little more than a pretty penny to beat the search engine game

The strategies while workable will be liable to the scrutinity of the search engines due to the fact the "Project Black Mask" will nonetheless gain momentum with the masses at large, the greatest risk is that the returns will greatly diminished due to the wider scope it has now been catapulted to and for the fact that every man and his dog will endure sleepless nights trying to milk this Black Hat Strategy for all it's worth, so, in a little while it will be rendered a worthless piece of junk (ffa sites and safelists came to mind)

The question on everybody's mind is: Is there an alternative strategy? After scouring the internet for the latest buzz on the "Project Black Mask," I stumbled across this interesting post which I sought permission to contribute to my online journal here at:
http://search4article.com/review/?p=80, A quick review showed this startegy to be similar in technique, but less convoluted, the software recommended are more affordable, beating the project black mask price by about four city blocks, the method is far less risky though in parts there are black hat mehodology involved but is designed to be less aggressive but more persuasive and friendly to the search engines.

Due to the passive but highly result driven approach of this alternative method, I believe there is something yet the masses haven't goten their hands on as yet.